Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-05-13
BUILDINGS THATARE uNLuCkY
Houses Noted for Fires, suicides, and
other Calamtties

Houses Noted for Fires, suicides, and
other CaIamities.
81 am not supersttous, as general
rule said Liberty street real estate
dealer. as he cruised about the ex-
change looking for unwary buyers the
other day. 'but in the course of twenty
years experience in renting and selling
property in New York | have noticed
things that seem impossible TO explain
except by luck or fate There are some
buildings in this city which, for no APP
parent cause, are sure to make trouble
for their owners and tenants as the sun
is to shine. No amount of care or
prudence will make them profitable,
while buildings right next to them.
which are neglected by owners and
abused by tenants, Will be lucky all the
time. There is building on Church
street where suicide has occurred
once in every twenty months for years.
1t Is good building, light, well con-
structed. desirable in every way, but
YOU cant get half the rents for that as
YOU can in the next building. because it
has the reputation of being what people
who use slang call "hoodoo," and
every tenant who goes into it is haunt
ed by the fear that he is going TO fail
or be burned out or loose his mother-in-
law. It's all on account of these sui
oiHaG IhaV haua vivian IL baI
and that's thousand times harder to
drive out of a house than rats.
| know tenement-house on the East
side that is given over to fires. The
landlord has made the most extraordin-
airy efforts TO prevent them. hired
watchmen. put in fire-prooting, auto
matte alarms, kept the police on the
alert, but fires are the rule in that
house, and now YOU can scarcely hire
people to live in it. 1t isn't incendiar-
ism. suppose it what cool scientific
people would call mere coincidence. but
most people would say it was luck
The house is 'hoodooed' in the minds
OF tenants anyway.
There are some houses which none
but undesirable tenants W II occupy in
spite of everything you can do.
know a man who recently came into
stones throw from this exchange which
had been given up to rag lofts in spite
of the efforts of the former owner to
get them ont. He spent more than
SO, 600 in fixing up the building, made
over the rooms into handsome offices.
put in an elevator. and made the rents
low. The building is in good locality
for office-renters, and in short time it
was full of desirable tenants. The
man congratulated himself on his fore
sight and wisdom. In a month one
tenant failed, another skipped TO Cana
da. another eloped with the landlady.
The signs came down. the people went
out and in year the rag lofts were
back again. ! don't know how to ex-
plain it, but YOU couldn't make money
out OF that building to save your life.
On the next corner was building not
half as good or desirable in any way.
and the owner was clearing more than
$50. 900 year from it.
lone of the most expensive build
ings on lower Broadway is supposed to
be 'hoodooed, BY the fact that part of
the land il stands on is owned by an
old miser. who won't sell. but exacts
an enormous rate for the lease. ANY
way, there are more failures in that
building than in any other on the street.
tenants are continually turning out to
be defaulterS. the elevator is contin-
uallv falling on somebody, people are
always tumbling downstairs and
breaking their limbs. children drop
out of the windows, signs slip from
their places, the steam-heating appara-
tus is perpetually out of order, and
the owner has worried himself to a
fleshless bone. '-NeU York Mail and
Express.